Imperiled Clout in Foreign Arena

In the last dozen years, Secretary of State Warren Christopher says, Congress has cut spending on international affairs by 51%, adjusted for inflation. In the four years Bill Clinton has been president, foreign policy-related spending has been slashed by $2.5 billion. That has meant, among other things, that 30 embassies and consulates around the world have had to be closed, along with one-fourth of the overseas libraries operated by the U.S. Information Agency. “We cannot advance American interests by lowering the American flag,” Christopher warned in a speech at West Point. When a president’s ability to conduct diplomacy is diminished, which is exactly what the budget cuts have done, recourse to the military option in a crisis is likely to become less avoidable.

Diplomacy, which broadly speaking means trying to advance the nation’s manifold interests in peaceful ways, has always been something of an orphan in annual congressional battles over funding. Unlike farm programs, defense contracts, veterans’ benefits or highway construction, it has never had a powerful constituency lobbying in its favor. Add to that the imperatives of budget cutting, plus the parochialism of a growing number of members of Congress, and the result is the bleak picture that Christopher sketches. The world’s most powerful nation is almost willfully abandoning its opportunities to spread its influence and deter crises.

Americans, as polls regularly show, have a grossly exaggerated notion of how much their government spends on promoting its foreign relations; many people seem to believe the amount equals 10% or more of the total budget. In fact, just 1.2% goes for international affairs, everything from operating the State Department and its overseas missions to providing a declining amount of direct aid to a shrinking number of countries (mainly Israel and Egypt) to helping support the United Nations and the World Bank. Funding these efforts is not a frivolous use of the public’s money.

Congress, says Christopher, has put U.S. security at risk by seriously weakening Washington’s capability in the arena of international relations. What he calls the maintenance of “diplomatic readiness” is not a partisan issue but rather a case to be argued vigorously and, it’s to be hoped, with bipartisan backing in the new Congress that assembles in January.